Over the past few weekends I’ve made a number of trips to various parts of the Mojave Desert, mostly to see the flowers, but of course I encountered various other interesting scenes along the way. The Mojave presents a unique combination of ancient desert and volcanic history, and in the right places with the right rain, the flowers can be astonishingly abundant. That is, until the ever-hungry sphinx moth caterpillars get to them!

3 Comments to “Secrets of the Mojave”

Cheers Floris! We just got back Saturday from a 3+ week trip to the same places (plus the Carrizo) including the same lava tube albeit without my tripod 🙁 Those caterpillars are out of control! Did you notice piles of dead ones at the base of vertical cliffs where their imperative was overcome by gravity?

That’s one of the better Red Rock Cyn shots I’ve ever seen… love it in monochrome. Is that from the campground area of the park or someplace more remote?

About Me: My name is Floris van Breugel, and I'm a part-time nature photographer and full-time scientific researcher with a PhD in engineering and a focus on the neuroscience of insect flight behavior. Read more about Floris van Breugel, or contact him.